Confessions of a Former Fraud
I recently finished this book, just in time for the start of another semester of my (mostly online) graduate program.
It’s an extremely well-written memoir that’s insightful and clever in a bunch of terrific ways. In it, Kirn talks about how he was able to skirt through Princeton without having to actually learn much at all, relying instead on brazen confidence, posturing and vague theorizing.
While I never took it to the extent that Kirn describes, it reminded me of some of the darkest hours of my own undergraduate experience and how that differs from the online program that I’m going through now.
One of my majors as an undergrad was in German Studies. While I was real good at the “Studies” part, my German language skills were never the greatest. In fact, I was always kind of embarrassed about them in relation to the other folks in my classes (most of whom, unlike me, benefited from having lived and studied in Europe).
So from time to time, when I had no idea what we were talking about but had the general sense that it was high time for me to contribute, I’d deliver a nugget like this:
“Hmm… X? Well, before we can answer that, I think we have to consider X in the context of Y, right? To what extent is X a continuation of Y, and to what extent does X represent a caesura from Y. That really has to be the foundation of our inquiry, right?”
I think it was just enough to raise the possibility that maybe my German was better than it actually was, and that my only real issue was being a pretentious jerk-hole.
I wasn’t proud of myself at the time and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten increasingly uncomfortable with that kind of subterfuge. Especially now that I realize my hesitance to speak up and authentically participate in the discussion was part of what prevented me from getting the feedback and instruction required for actual learning.
But I think this is one of the areas where an online environment adds a lot of value to an educational experience. Most of my courses make heavy use of online discussion boards, which require the learner to engage with the content to such an extent that they’re making substantive contributions to the learning community.
That thoughtful, chin-stroking act is hard to pull off online. Asynchronous discussion boards give learners the time to make more meaningful, thoughtful contributions. And the community of other learners has time to digest what you’re actually saying and a built-in structure for asking you to clarify your message.
Which is one of the reasons why I think we’re starting to see stories like this.
Bill Cochran
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Senior Instructional Designer
NogginLabs, Inc.
